Network Forensics in the Cloud Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Network Forensics in the Cloud - Research Paper Example lenges of performing network forensics are presented due to the decentralization nature of data processing and lack of physical servers making the traditional approaches redundant. The examined challenges in network forensics in cloud infrastructures are as below; The expertise required to handle sophisticated cloud forensic crimes is lacking in many institutions since most investigations are conducted by digital forensic experts using conventional tools and procedures applied traditionally. Laws and regulations are slowly evolving with respect to swiftly changing cloud technologies (Peterson, & Shenoi, 2013). The forensic data accessed is dependent on the cloud model that is implemented in every service and deployment model. For instance; Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) clients have a comparatively unrestricted access to the statistics forensic investigators consider sufficient. On the other hand, the clients to software as a service (SaaS) will be provide with limited or no access to such information. This limited access to forensic information means that users of systems have limited knowledge and control of the physical locations of their data. The providers of cloud service omit the terms of use that would assist forensic preparedness of the cloud service (DeFranco, 2013). This limited access to metadata and log files by customers also reduces the ability to carry – out real time monitoring and auditing. The spread of mobile endpoints is a challenge for the collection of evidence and recovery of data and this is due to the impact of a crime, extensive number of resources linked to the cloud, and the workload of an investigation being considerable. The traditional forensics faces the challenge of disparate log formats and this is aggravated by cloud since there is prevalence of proprietary log formats and it holds large volumes of data logs. Since deleted data is sensitive to forensic investigations then remote access is hardly possible when the